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Larry Abramson

Larry Abramson is NPR's National Security Correspondent. He covers the Pentagon, as well as issues relating to the thousands of vets returning home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Prior to his current role, Abramson was NPR's Education Correspondent covering a wide variety of issues related to education, from federal policy to testing to instructional techniques in the classroom. His reporting focused on the impact of for-profit colleges and universities, and on the role of technology in the classroom. He made a number of trips to New Orleans to chart the progress of school reform there since Hurricane Katrina. Abramson also covers a variety of news stories beyond the education beat.

In 2006, Abramson returned to the education beat after spending nine years covering national security and technology issues for NPR. Since 9/11, Abramson has covered telecommunications regulation, computer privacy, legal issues in cyberspace, and legal issues related to the war on terrorism.

During the late 1990s, Abramson was involved in several special projects related to education. He followed the efforts of a school in Fairfax County, Virginia, to include severely disabled students in regular classroom settings. He joined the National Desk reporting staff in 1997.

For seven years prior to his position as a reporter on the National Desk, Abramson was senior editor for NPR's National Desk. His department was responsible for approximately 25 staff reporters across the United States, five editors in Washington, and news bureaus in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. The National Desk also coordinated domestic news coverage with news departments at many of NPR's member stations. The desk doubled in size during Abramson's tenure. He oversaw the development of specialized beats in general business, high-technology, workplace issues, small business, education, and criminal justice.

Abramson joined NPR in 1985 as a production assistant with Morning Edition. He moved to the National Desk, where he served for two years as Western editor. From there, he became the deputy science editor with NPR's Science Unit, where he helped win a duPont-Columbia Award as editor of a special series on Black Americans and AIDS.

Prior to his work at NPR, Abramson was a freelance reporter in San Francisco and worked with Voice of America in California and in Washington, D.C.

He has a master's degree in comparative literature from the University of California at Berkeley. Abramson also studied overseas at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and at the Free University in Berlin, Germany.

  • During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander would not say.
  • Lawmakers questioned Marine Commandant James Amos about how much money the military really needs. One day they say any cut endangers national security. Another day, they say they are ready for any attack on Syria.
  • The Pentagon has been focusing on the Syrian military's command-and-control sites, which remain the most likely focus of any U.S. strike. But military planners have begun to add new targets, such as mobile missile launchers, that could require more than cruise missiles — and make the mission more complicated.
  • Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will help direct an attack on Syria, if and when it happens. But for now he's in Brunei for the ASEAN Plus meeting, far from the drums of war. It's an opportunity to build military-to-military ties — and sell weapons. But the prospect of action in Syria is never far away.
  • The NSA says it's only examining traffic information, not the content of Americans' phone calls. How much can that information tell you? Quite a lot, and in some ways it's more useful than actual content. NPR's Larry Abramson learns what analysts can discover about his life and contacts just by looking at his Gmail account.
  • Under pressure from Congress, the Pentagon has announced additional measures to combat sexual assault. The Pentagon continues to resist proposals that would take prosecution of sexual assault out of the chain of command, but some lawmakers say that's the step that would make a difference.
  • At his press conference on Friday, President Obama promised more transparency about the government's secret national security surveillance programs. The president expressed support for some reform efforts being considered in Congress and called for the release of more documents that explain how and why the surveillance effort works and whether it safeguards the privacy of Americans.
  • The Air Force Special Victims' Counsel is a new effort to provide support to sexual assault victims. These military attorneys will represent the victim only, and the hope is that this kind of support will make it easier for victims to report assaults without feeling like they're being victimized again.
  • Soldiers around the world will stop what they're doing Thursday to take part in suicide prevention training. The "stand down" is part of the Army's response to an alarming suicide rate — on average, one a day.
  • Occupy Wall Street protesters say the high cost of college is one of the barriers between them and a good life. College costs have skyrocketed, though maybe not as much as you might think.